


Clayface - Reflections

by Nathaniel_Quietly



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 10:05:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nathaniel_Quietly/pseuds/Nathaniel_Quietly
Summary: So for those who havent heard, October is here and we at DC Animated Adventures are teaming up with Nazario Designs to giveaway the complete Batman: The Animated Series on DVD! Chris will draw a villain a day and you just write a short 400-500 word story about that character and you're entered! That simple!Lance and I decided that we wanted to play along as well, even though we're not qualified to win (as we are putting on the contest). Here's my entry for today, Clayface. (Check outThe DCAA Facebookfor more information.)





	Clayface - Reflections

_What light, through yonder window breaks._

It was morning, and Basil Karlo was far too old to be anyone’s Romeo. He reached up to wipe the sleep from his eyes, before consciousness took hold and he remembered he had no need. The rims of his eyes, the lids, even the sclera and tear ducts...they were clay. All clay.

Not Romeo. Hamlet, then? _Alas, poor Yorick? I knew him well, Horatio?_ While it was true, he had suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, he had not been as lucky as the Prince of Denmark’s erstwhile friend. And while he had gibed and gamboled across the stage in his time, he had no grin with which to mock.

Karlo sat up on his bunk, tucked safely away in the old props room of a long discarded theater company in the bowels of The Narrows. He walked on weighted, sticky feet to the full length mirror near the men’s closets. With a heavy sigh, he stared back at the misshapen thing he had become. 

How he envied Glouchester! Would that someone pluck out his own eyes, for he had not the strength. Through a quirk of destiny to rival Puck’s mischief of Bottoms, he could turn his hands, his fingers, to any form he could imagine: blades, spades, shovels...and yet he could not bring himself to remove his eyes.

Instead he stared forward, into the silvered, polished glass, and concentrated. If he were to be Hamlet, he might as well look the part….

He focused. His breathing slowed, evened out. The clay around his face, his shoulders, his chest began to flow, contort, reform; what had been uneven mounds of formless blank earth became plain grey monk’s robes and travelling cloak. His face shrank, his jaw squared, he sprouted blonde hair in a bowl cut, and a neatly trimmed beard. He looked uncannily like Mel Gibson. He grinned, and the image in the mirror quirked a charming smile in return.

But it was a facsimile. A farce. His smile fell, followed by his face. If these shadows have offended…. Offended, no. Tantalized. Inspired. Tormented. _That you have but slumbered here/ While these visions did appear._

But Karlo was awake now. Awake, again. Trapped beneath a mountain of mud, again. 

His fist writhed, twisted into a sledgehammer. He could feel the sudden weight, the heft of his own appendage. He roared, bellowed, hefted the sledge of his own hand up and towards the offending shadow of the mirror….

And stopped. Bare inches from the reflective glass, his hand bulbous in the image. He’d stopped. As he always did.

_And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet not know of._

Karlo sighed. Time to face the day.


End file.
